


A Story of Infinite Repetitions That Happens Only Once

by fillmoredawn



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Future Character Death, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Major Illness, Multi, Near Future, New York City, Polyamory, Set in 1991, Terminal Illnesses, basically it's 1991 and Steve is dying of AIDS sorry, stoncy, there might be a part 2 but probably not, yes the pacing is an issue and i am sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19428061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fillmoredawn/pseuds/fillmoredawn
Summary: The year was 1991, and Steve Harrington was dying.





	A Story of Infinite Repetitions That Happens Only Once

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware of discussion of terminal illness (AIDS), including symptoms such as dizziness, vomiting, fever, sarcoma lesions. Not a happy tale but hopefully not wholly unhappy either.

Steve Harrington was dying. The year was 1991, and Steve was lying on the reclined passenger seat in Jonathan's subaru, palm pressed flat against his stomach and listening to the wind flap against the half-open window. Jonathan was barely driving 65, but every slight turn and lane change made Steve's stomach slosh.

He tried to ask, "Where's Nancy?" but his tongue was bloated and sandy, taking up the entirety of his mouth. All that came out was a pained groan.

"Huh?" Jonathan reached across Steve to roll up the window. His bare forearm brushed against Steve's thin t-shirt. Steve wanted to take Jonathan's arm and hold it against his chest, but before Steve could convince his limbs to move the window had been rolled up and Jonathan's presence was gone. 

"What did you say?" Jonathan asked him. Steve swallowed, trying to force saliva into his desert of a mouth.

"Nancy," Steve croaked, hoping that would be enough for Jonathan to decipher.

"She stayed behind in New York," he said. He was biting his nails down to nubs on one hand. Steve saw this and winced. "Remember? She's got 3 weeks left on her run of Alice in Wonderland, and then she's coming directly to us." 

_ Good, _ Steve wanted to say.  _ I don't think I can make it much longer than that. _

Jonathan must have been able to sense what Steve was thinking, because he reached over and pressed a hand to Steve's shoulder. 

"We're going to get you better," he said, shadows dancing across the sharp angles of his face. "Some clean air, being away from the city stress, and you'll be back to yourself in no time." Jonathan was nearly two years out of school and the tired shape him looked worse than ever. Hot guilt danced in Steve's stomach, or he might have been about to vomit. 

Steve forced himself to nod and looked through the rolled up window at the side view mirror. They'd been on the road for a few hours but somehow, Steve thinks he can still see the New York City skyline in a reflected haze. That morning, as he'd watched Jonathan and Nancy pack up the car, he'd looked up and taken a deep breath of the smog and the rot and the spice of the food vendors and the wailing and the shaking of the Q train. Steve had said goodbye, acknowledging that he would never feel that again. He was leaving his friends, his favorite hangouts, his home in New York to die quietly in boring old Hawkins, Indiana. 

But now, driving in the old subaru along I-80, Steve thought he could almost smell New York City leaking in through the air conditioning vents. 

He'd last for 3 more weeks, Steve decided at that moment. Three weeks and then one good day, to spend sitting with Jonathan and Nancy in a sunny cornfield somewhere. 

And then he'd die. 

* * *

People got what they deserved in the end. Steve knew this as a fact, and that's why he wasn't afraid. Whatever was going to happen, for whatever reason, it was what he deserved. 

But  _ god _ , he didn't think he deserved Hawkins. 

As they drove to the Byers house, Jonathan had silently taken the long way through Hawkins, past Steve's childhood home, his mini-mansion, his once-castle. Steve hadn't spoken to his parents in over 5 years. He hadn't thought he cared.

Still, there was no softening the glass in his stomach that formed when he saw the paved lot where his parents' house had been. He wondered if his father's debts had finally caught up to him. He wondered if his parents still lived in Hawkins. He wondered if they were still together. He wondered if they were still alive. 

"Steve," Jonathan had begun, but he said no more. They both knew there was nothing he could say to make things better. 

"Keep going," Steve had said, because that was all he could think to say and because Jonathan's hand was hovering scarily close to the gear shift. He couldn't handle 15 mph, he  _ couldn't _ take the car stopping. 

Jonathan had sped the rest of the way. Steve hadn't complained, no matter how much his stomach threatened to reject its emptiness with every turn and acceleration. 

In the Byers' driveway, Jonathan and Will (who was home from Indiana State and nearly 5'10) had helped Steve inside. At the porch steps, they lifted him off his feet without so much as a groan. Steve had demanded to stand alone in the entryway while Joyce greeted and hugged Jonathan. Steve was struck by a dizzy spell and fell, dragging down an abundance of coats from their hooks. 

"I'm sorry," he had groaned, once his head had stabilized enough to take stock of what he had done. "I—" and then he began to cough. 

"Sweetheart, don't worry about it," Joyce had assured him. "It's no trouble." 

It was,  _ he  _ was trouble, but Steve didn't know how to say this. He let Will support him all the way to Jonathan's bedroom without complaint. Will had taken off his shoes and tucked him into Jonathan's bed, and it wasn't until he had silently fled from the room that Steve realized he never got the chance to thank him. 

Then Jonathan was in the doorway. The low sun was illuminating him in shades of gold, and he was so handsome, and Steve was so, so sorry. Tears worked their way up through his bones. Always, Steve thought he was finally empty, and then it hit him all over again. 

"I'm sorry," Steve said, and he didn't know if he was talking to Jonathan or to himself or to some other presence. His body was shuddering in rhythm with his sobs. How did it all get so out of control? "I don't know how this happened." 

Jonathan puckered his lips, and he didn't say  _ it's okay Steve _ or  _ it's not your fault Steve  _ or  _ I love you, Steve. _ Which was for the best. Steve didn't deserve to hear that. 

Jonathan exhaled into the stillness of his bedroom. "It's crushing me," he said at last. Jonathan's eyes had become red. Steve felt the heat of embarrassment under his tears but could not look away. "I can't— I don't know how anything is. It's so  _ heavy _ ." 

Steve held out his arms for Jonathan. Jonathan laughed, a sharp and unexpected noise in the solemnity of the room, and then started to work his shoes off his feet.  _ Good _ . They hadn't touched in too long. 

Steve scooched to the edge of Jonathan's twin sized mattress and folded back the corner of the blanket. Jonathan slid into bed with a childhood of familiarity. Steve took him in his arms. Jonathan let him pretend that he was still strong. 

This was his lover, Steve knew. He thought of every time he had held out his arm for Jonathan, every time he had jokingly greeted him  _ what's up, asshole? _ and they had both laughed. He wished he could exchange every  _ asshole _ for  _ lover _ . He wanted to exchange a lot more, too. 

"Lover," Steve said right then, because he didn't know how many more chances he would have to say it. 

The padded tips of Jonathan's finger were tracing the sleeves of Steve's sleeve, extended around Jonathan's chest. Slowly, as if he knew what he would find, Jonathan rolled up Steve's sleeve. Steve didn't try to stop him, but he winced at the sound of Jonathan's hiss. 

There was a new lesion beside his elbow, deep red and painful to the touch. Jonathan traced the edges of it like he was taking a measurement and then rolled the sleeve back down. 

"Once Nancy gets here," Steve started to explain. Jonathan shushed him and pulled Steve's arms tighter around him. 

"Let's not talk about that right now," Jonathan said, closing his eyes. "Let's pretend just for one moment." 

Steve pressed a gentle kiss to Jonathan's jaw, just below his ear, and then tried to sync his breathing with Jonathan's. He had to fall asleep, or else he wasn't going to be able to let go of him— of his lover. And Steve had to learn how to let go, and he had to learn to do it soon. 

* * *

Jonathan had promised sunshine and country air. He had also said, repeatedly, that Steve was going to get better. Steve knew that Jonathan was in denial, on all counts. Even when the porch was bathed in summer sunlight, Steve shivered. The country air made him cough and cough. And Steve was not getting better. 

It felt to Steve like his body was decaying further with each passing hour. When he ate the food Joyce lovingly prepared for him, Steve ended up expelling half-digested casserole over the toilet no more than an hour later. Just walking from Jonathan's bed to the living room couch demonstrated Steve's trembling legs, his near complete absence of muscle. 

Mostly, Steve slept. He was surrendering his last living hours to slumber, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Each time he woke, it got a little harder not to give up. Consciousness only served to remind him how close he was to the end of everything. 

Days became new days, and Steve didn't know how long he'd been in Hawkins except to know that Nancy had still not arrived. Each time he woke, it was with her name on his lips. He was hanging on, but barely. He needed her, unbearably so. 

The porch door slammed, and Steve jolted awake, the edges of a dream trapped in his teeth. Long, slender fingers, warmer than Jonathan's were holding his hand. 

Steve tried to blink away the salty crust that had formed over his eyelids. Through the blurry haze, he could make out dark curls and sharp features, and he smiled.  _ Nancy. Finally.  _ He breathed relief, but a sea of phlegm bubbled up in his lungs and he began to cough. Nancy, finally. He could go now. He could go.

"Nancy," he croaked, and thought  _ not bad for a last word, huh?  _

Mike Wheeler gave Steve's hand a squeeze.  _ No _ . "Not yet," Mike said, and he said it like a promise. "But she's on her way, Steve. She'll be here soon." 

A cup of water was tilted into his mouth.  _ Too much _ . He sputtered and choked. Pinkish water expelled past his peeling lips. A hand which he knew to be Jonathan's reached out to wipe the water away. Steve flinched senselessly.

He had been struck by a premonition sent from 1984— Byers' beating him to shit (deservedly so, in perspective) while Nancy watched. That first moment of the three of them that stirred something deep and undeniable within Steve. 

Something deep and undeniable that would not be acknowledged until the following year, when a crumpled up piece of notebook paper hit the back of Steve's head in his remedial math class. 

_ Meet us behind the movie theater at 10 tonight— You know where.  _

And Jonathan Byers at the back of the class, sheepishly refusing to look Steve in the eye. 

Steve had gone to the alleyway where Jonathan had spilled Steve's blood in 1983, expecting to find Byers waiting for him with a cocked fist, and maybe a few words like,  _ stay the hell away from my girl _ or something equally corny. Privately, counting down the hours until 10 o'clock, Steve had hoped that's what he would find. He wanted to see Byers aflamed again, like he had been that day in 1983. 

Instead, there had been two shadows waiting for him, and Steve, realization dawning on him like a car crash had understood:  _ us. _ Meet  _ us _ . 

He'd been dragged, nervously and delightedly, into the back of Byers' car. It was a tight squeeze, but Steve hadn't minded. They liked touching like that, shoved up and on top of each other. 

He thought now of that note, of his own fear and desire. He thought of Jonathan Byers, fearless, and Nancy Wheeler, fearless, and Steve Harrington, coward. 

This wasn't fair— to have it all, and then lose it, then to have it again, and lose it. And then to have it, all of it, and even more than he could have ever imagined. And now he was going to lose it. For the last time. After this, there would be no getting back. 

"Steve?" Jonathan's voice trembled. "Steve, are you still there?"

Steve tried to speak, to moan, to croak, but his vocal cords were in atrophic disagreement. He could barely manage a wheeze.

"Steve? Oh, god." Jonathan's hand, cold and clammy like a chunk of ice, snaked under Steve's HAWKINS HIGH sweatshirt, borrowed from Will. Jonathan's palm lay flat against Steve's calcifying belly. Steve willed a big breath to fill his lungs.

Jonathan looked to Joyce, his eyes wild like an animal. "He's still here," he said, and Will gasped and sagged with relief.

"More water," Joyce declared, and Steve couldn't call after her  _ no, no more water _ , he was already swollen and sloshed enough already. 

It was just him and Jonathan and Mike and Will, and Steve wished suddenly and painfully that he hadn't been an only child, that some tiny piece of him would remain, if only for Nancy and Jonathan's comfort.

He noted absently and without much care that he was having an abundance of impossible wishes, here on his deathbed. Most of all, he wished they were all still in high school. 

The first moment that came to him was that crumpled paper note hitting him, that—  _ Meet us behind the movie theater— you know where. _ But then, almost just as quickly, he thought of that first  _ real _ moment, of Jonathan's fist and Nancy's eyes burning into him. 

He wanted to go back to that second, to that first touch that could have been warped into a caress. When everything was full of crushing potential. He wanted to have all the good things of the world ahead of him. There had been so much good, then. He wanted to have it all again. 

"Steve?" Jonathan's hand was on Steve's chapped cheek, alive with electric love. Not punching. Steve thought  _ look how far we've come _ . "I know I can't ask you to stay," said Jonathan, "but please. Not yet. Please just not yet." 

He could hear a car speeding around the turn into the Byers' driveway, could identify the scraping sound of Nancy's shitty Audi. Mike looked to the door of Jonathan's room, confirming what Steve already knew.

Nancy. Good. 

It wouldn't be long now. Not yet. But it wouldn't be long.

Steve relaxed into Jonathan's pillows and waited for the end to come. He only needed a minute with her. And then… 

He could feel a shadow in the room with them. He'd been able to sense it, with growing presence, for the better part of a half hour. Crushing. But not uncomfortable. He hoped it would be gentle. 

But he knew people got what they deserved, and he knew in that moment that the end would not be gentle. 

**Author's Note:**

> Suspension of disbelief required at some parts, but I hope you enjoyed! Pacing is an issue but I was anxious to put it up. 
> 
> I would love .... comments :) Otherwise reach out to me on tumblr @impersonal villain.


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